News Round-up: June 3 - July 3

The latest operating system for Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices -- newly renamed as iOS 4 -- is now available for download from the iTunes store. It is a free update for 2nd-gen iPod Touch / iPhone 3G or newer, although some features are only available on newer hardware, such as the not-really-multitasking-but-still-called-it multitasking. There’s really no reason not to update, as performance has been improved all round.

The iPhone 4 is now available, sporting a high resolution 960-by-640 “retina” display, 512MB RAM, a faster processor, new camera, and a new hardware design. Apple has been heavily criticised over a design flaw related to the antenna placement that resulted in reduced reception unless the phone is held in a specific (and awkward) way. They have released a backhanded apology that blames the problem on an error in the algorithm that calculates signal strength.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Mac mini is not dead, with Apple releasing a new design and updated internals for its neglected child. Most notable for gamers is the addition of a faster graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce 320M) and HDMI. It’s looking more and more attractive as a dedicated MAME box. Check out the press release here.

Emulator updates after the break.

Richard Bannister has released a new version (0.6.4) of Super Nintendo emulator BSNES. This update adds support for cheat codes and Super Game Boy titles, but removes support for PowerPC machines. As always, you can find out more on his website.

MSX emulator openMSX has been updated to version 0.8.0, with the addition of a rewind feature and Laserdisc support.

Amstrad PCW emulator Joyce has been updated to version 2.2.3. This release brings a correction to the configuration script.

Open source Atari ST emulator Hatari has been updated to version 1.4.0, featuring improvements to the Falcon sound emulation.

MAME 0.138u2 was released in mid-June, with a large number of changes -- big and small. See the changelog for details.

PCSX-Reloaded build 53983 is now available from SpeedofMac’s website. See here for the MacScene community thread.

VirtualBox has been updated to version 3.2.6, bringing a large number of bugfixes. See here for the changelog.

Got any news tips? Let us know on the forums. I’d also like to know if there’s anything else you’d like me to cover, such as (retro-themed?) game releases, productivity software, or iPhone Apps. Hit up the comments if you have any suggestions or requests.